September 4, 2026 | 05:18 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The death toll from devastating flash floods along the Nepal-China border has risen to 1,280, while more than 5,600 people remain missing as search and rescue operations enter their second week.
As reported by Anadolu, Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority reported 1,259 deaths and 5,083 people still missing as of Thursday, September 3. The missing include 583 foreign nationals.
More than 21,400 security personnel have been deployed to affected areas as authorities continue searching for victims and delivering emergency assistance.
With many missing people presumed dead, some families in Nepal have begun holding symbolic funeral ceremonies for relatives whose bodies have not been recovered.
Families Hold Funerals for Missing Relatives
In Rasuwa, one of the areas hardest hit by the floods, families have created symbolic funeral effigies using kaas-kush, a type of sacred grass, to perform rituals intended to help release the souls of missing relatives.
The ceremonies were held as families increasingly lost hope of recovering the bodies of loved ones swept away by the floods, The Kathmandu Post reported.
On Wednesday, September 2, dozens of the effigies were cremated in a mass funeral ceremony at Pashupati Aryaghat, a cremation site on the banks of the Bagmati River in Kathmandu.
The rituals reflect the growing humanitarian and emotional toll of the disaster, with many families still unable to locate relatives more than a week after the floods.
In Chitwan, another badly affected district, authorities have cremated unidentified bodies after collecting DNA samples in an effort to preserve the possibility of future identification.
The scale of the disaster has made identifying and storing bodies increasingly difficult. In some districts, floodwaters swept away homes as well as family members, leaving survivors without suitable places to conduct funeral rites.
Families who have lost their homes and traveled to Kathmandu in search of shelter have also struggled to find adequate public facilities for traditional funeral ceremonies.
Search and Rescue Operations Continue
Meanwhile, military and police personnel continue search and rescue operations across flood-hit areas.
Their efforts have been hampered by damaged or severed roads, power outages and disruptions to communication networks. Rescue teams are also working to deliver humanitarian supplies and maintain sanitation at temporary shelters to reduce the risk of infectious diseases.
Anadolu also report that in neighboring China, authorities reported 21 deaths and 541 people missing, including 261 foreign nationals.
Together, the reported figures from Nepal and China bring the death toll to 1,280 and the number of missing people to 5,624.
The flash floods struck the Nepal-China border on August 26 after a glacier at an elevation of about 5,200 meters broke away from Mount Langtang Lirung in Nepal.
The collapse triggered a massive flow of ice, rocks and debris that swept through valleys along the border.
The resulting flash floods and mudslides devastated Nepal's Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading and Kavre districts before reaching the Kathmandu Valley. On the Chinese side, debris also buried the Gyirong border crossing in the southwestern part of the Xizang Autonomous Region, also known as Tibet.
Search teams remain deployed as authorities race to locate survivors, recover victims and provide assistance to communities whose homes and infrastructure were swept away by the disaster.
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